The Black Witch HellBound

The basement of Ashwick City Archives smelled like forgotten things-old paper, leather bindings, and the musty odour of centuries of accumulated dust. Sera Thorne had long since stopped noticing the smell. She'd spent too many nights down here, alone among the stacks, for it to bother her anymore.

The only sound other than the old building's sporadic settling groan was the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead. The main floors above her had been cleared out hours before. Sera had the entire archive to herself at almost midnight after the day workers had left at five and the evening researchers had started to leave by eight.

Just the way she liked it.

Coughing as dust blew into her face, she took another leather-bound book off the shelf. Only a year had passed since the murder that had condemned her people when the novel was written in 1625. The stamped date on the spine, worn smooth by time and innumerable hands, was traced by her fingers. How many of those hands had belonged to others who shared her quest for the truth?

Documents littered the table in front of her, a meticulous mess she had created. She took pictures of documents she wasn't legally allowed to view, copied pages, and transcribed notes.

It all revolved around the execution of Morgana Thorne and the demise of King Aldric Ashcroft.

The ancestor of Sera. Ten times removed, roughly, her great-great-great-grandmother. The woman whose alleged crime had sentenced every witch who came after her to a life of hiding and fear.

Opening the volume, she skimmed through pages of official vampire documentation. The majority of it was pointless, including trade deals, property transfers, and the routine operations of a monarchy. But in the last three years, she had developed patience.

She had learnt to sift through mountains of irrelevant information for tiny grains of truth since her grandmother's death, when she was left alone with nothing but questions and a desperate need for answers.

Morgana was innocent, according to her grandmother. Had tried to prove it her entire life. Sera was carrying the torch now, burning it in this dark place where nobody could see.

She was drawn to the following line: "Council meeting, 15th day of September, 1624."

Discussion regarding concerns about the king's proposed reforms..." Her pulse quickened. She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the page. King Aldric had been planning reforms. She'd found oblique references to this before, but never details. What kind of reforms? Why had they concerned the council enough to warrant a formal meeting? She flipped pages, looking for more, but the next entry jumped forward a month.

Everything that had been addressed was either lost or had never been documented in this specific volume.

Rubbing her weary eyes, Sera reclined in her chair. It always went like this. Bits and pieces of knowledge, glimpses of something bigger, but never enough to create a whole picture. Because she so much wanted them to exist, she occasionally questioned whether she was chasing ghosts and seeing patterns where none were.

Her phone buzzed. "You're at the archive again, aren't you?" texted Marco, one of the few friends who was aware of who she really was.

This is getting unhealthy." She ignored it. Marco was human, well-meaning, but unable to understand. He thought she was obsessed with local history as a quirky hobby. He didn't know she was hunting for evidence that might save her people. Though "save" might be too strong a word.

The witches who remained were scattered, hidden, surviving. Most had given up on anything beyond survival. Only a few, like Rowan and his resistance network, still actively fought against vampire rule. And even fewer, like Sera, believed that truth might accomplish what violence never had. She returned to her search, pulling more volumes.

The trial records from Morgana's execution had been heavily edited, she knew. Whole sections removed, testimony redacted. But sometimes information leaked through in other records-mentions in personal letters, footnotes in unrelated documents, the cracks where the official narrative didn't quite fit together. Hours passed.

Sera was hunched over the desk, and her back hurt. Insufficient light caused her eyes to burn as she read tiny handwriting. But since this was all she had, she persisted. When she was eight years old, a vampire raid on the apartment building where her parents had been sheltering resulted in their deaths.

Raised by her grandmother, she learned to be invisible, to avoid using magic in public, and to survive by being inconspicuous.

Then her granny fell three years ago. A single, tiny spell to aid a neighbour's ailing child.

Someone had noticed. Someone had reported. The Nightguard had come.

It had occurred when Sera was at work. When she returned home, she saw her grandmother dead on the floor, furniture overturned, and their apartment door smashed. Sera knew the truth, even if they had pretended it was a heist.

The story was revealed by the burns on her grandmother's wrists-spelt chains, the kind reserved for witches.

Since then, she has been by herself.

No family. Few friends.

All she had left was her modest apartment, her position at the archives, and her personal battle for a truth that no one else seemed to care about.

A document fluttered to the ground after slipping between the pages of an ancient ledger. Sera scowled as she leaned to get it.

The paper was fragile and brown with age; it was a letter, or a portion of one. It appeared as though someone had attempted to destroy it but had not completed the task because the edges were burnt.

With her heart pounding, she unfolded it carefully on the desk. The handwriting was difficult to decipher due to its antiquated style. Due to time and fire damage, the majority of it was unreadable. However, she noticed a few expressions that managed to survive:

"The blade was given by." The following line was destroyed. "didn't want peace between." More damage. "will look like the witch's doing, and none will question." Sera's hands started to shake. This wasn't part of the official record. This was someone talking about framing Morgana. This was evidence.

She reached for her phone to take a picture of it, but before she could, something struck her like a blow. It began with an abrupt tug in her chest, as though something had caught in her ribs and was pushing violently. She gasped because the sensation was so weird and unexpected.

It sparked at her fingertips as her magic reacted to it. Overhead, the lights flickered.

No. No, this couldn't be what she thought it was.

The mate bond. Her grandmother had described it: an irresistible pull toward your other half, the person whose magic and soul resonated with yours. Among witches, it was rare but celebrated. Two witches find each other, their powers complementing and enhancing one another. But the pull wasn't directing her toward the witch community hidden throughout the city.